Pressure continues to build over the shortage of reception class places in Bearsted, centred on Madginford Park Infants School, Thurnham CofE Infants School and St John's Primary School. At the recent meeting of Bearsted Parish Council, Paul Carter, Leader of Kent County Council, listened to the concerns of many local parents whose children have no local school to go to, and has promised to do what he can to resolve the problem. One new issue is that at present, 43 of the 80 plus children without a school of their choice have been allocated places at St Paul's Infant School over two miles away. KCC is responsible for providing transport for those unable to make other arrangements, likely to be a minibus, driver as the only adult present, no seat belts, cost estimated at .......
On the surface, Kent primary school infant class placements, which took place at the end of March look well with a healthy 95% of children in Kent being offered one of their three choices, similar to last year. However, looking beneath the surface, a much more worrying picture emerges because of increased numbers in some areas as the number of children being allocated a school they hadn’t chosen has risen from 564 to 818 in two years, a frightening rise of 45%.
Analysis of the figures shows a sharp contrast between most of West Kent and most of East Kent and between urban and rural areas. Maidstone town is the most difficult area, with over 100 children allocated to schools they did not apply for and NO places free in any school in the town. Other problem areas include Tunbridge Wells with just 16 places left free out of the 920 available, and 75 children having none of their choices. 15 of those 16 free places are in Pembury School (just outside the town), and only exist as its capacity was expanded by 30 at short notice last year, to cater for the difficulties. Sevenoaks has 94 children allocated, 7 places left free; urban Dartford, 71 children allocated and 7 places left free; the Ramsgate area of Thanet, 65 children allocated, 8 places free, all in Bromstone Primary school in Broadstairs; Folkestone, 43 children allocated, 6 left free; and the area around Faversham with 37 children allocated.
Kent County Council, in a confidential analysis of issues produced in 2009, identified major problems for 2011 entry in Dartford, Gravesham, Thanet and Tunbridge Wells, some of these other issues being masked by rural parts of the districts having spare capacity. Sadly, little was done to alleviate the problems at a time when finances were easier. What is clear is that although Kent’s Primary Strategy of 2006 has a policy that there should be between 5-7% surplus capacity in an area, it has not planned to meet this policy. Where additional places have been added, too often these are last minute decisions and often in inappropriate schools. What we are seeing is an unwritten change of policy from trying to meet parental preferences, to a minimalist offering to children of a school somewhere, no matter how suitable.
Riverhead Infant School in Sevenoaks has soared to the top of the oversubscription table, turning away 54 first choices with the neighbouring Sevenoaks Primary School turning away 44 children, in fourth place. In between come Madginford Park in Maidstone, and Priory Infants, Ramsgate. In fifth place comes St James CofE VA Infant School, in Tunbridge Wells, then: Slade Primary, Tonbridge; Sandgate Primary, Folkestone; West Hill Primary, Dartford; St John's Catholic Primaryl, Gravesend; Joyden's Wood Infants, Dartford; St Peter's Methodist, Canterbury; Holy Trinity & St John's CofE Primary, Margate; St John's CofE Primary, Tunbridge Wells; St Stephen's Infant, Canterbury; Ethelbert Road Primary, Faversham; and St Mildred's Infants, Broadstairs. All these schools turned away 30 or more first choices.
At the other end of the table, 14 schools, nearly all in East Kent, have over half their places left empty. Three of these have all admitted fewer than 50% of their capacity for each of the last three years. How on earth can they remain viable? However, the political controversy over closing such schools is always intense, even if this would release resources to provide extra provision in places of greatest need. Further information on all the key pressure points at www.kentadvice.co.uk.
I now have detailed information on Kent and Medway primary school admission offers for September 2012. On the surface, all looks well with a healthy 95% of children in Kent being offered one of their three choices, similar to last year. However, with rising rolls the number of children being allocated a school they hadn’t chosen has risen from 564 to 818 in two years, a worrying rise of 45%.
You will find more general information in a separate article below. I have started to provide more detailed information on difficult areas, via the links below.
Analysis of the figures shows a sharp contrast between most of West Kent and most of East Kent and between urban and rural areas. Maidstone town is the most difficult area, with over 100 children allocated to schools they did not apply for (you will find an earlier article on part of the problem here) and NO places free in any school in the town. Other problem areas include:........
In 2009, a senior KCC officer produced a confidential paper for the then Director of Education, forecasting there would be an 8% shortfall in primary reception class places in Tunbridge Wells in 2011. This wasn't actually difficult to foresee, as these children had been born two years previously, and so the issue should have been raised earlier. No action was taken at a time when finance may well have been available to tackle the impending crisis.
In 2010, there were considerable problems in finding primary school placements in Tunbridge Wells. I wrote a newspaper article publicly outlining the issues, expanding it later in the year. No action was taken, but KCC explained that there wasn't actually a problem. I am not saying that KCC should have responded to my articles, but they had prior access to the same data I had subsequently unearthed.
In 2011, the expected forecast shortfall of 8% shortage of places in Tunbridge Wells proved exactly correct........
I now have the data for appeals for those primary and secondary schools in Kent, whose appeals were heard by an Independent Appeal Panel organised by KCC. In previous years I have had the data for all schools at this time, but figures for the 26 secondary schools who organise their own appeals will not be available until later in the year. I do not publish school by school data here, as it varies so much year on year, depending on the pressure on places, the decision of the admission authority (in most cases the school) as to how hard to resist the appeal and the make up of the panels. However, I do identify below where there are particular trends.
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2011 Secondary Appeal Numbers |
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| Appeals Heard | Appeals Upheld | % Upheld | |
| Foundation & Voluntary Aided Grammar Schools | 542 | 186 | 34 |
| Community Grammar Schools | 237 | 101 | 42 |
| Totla Grammar Schools | 779 | 287 | 36 |
| Non Selective Schools | 186 | 129 | 69 |
Details follow.........
"The Local Authority have recently informed us that there has been an unprecedented and unexpected increase in the number of people seeking Reception places across the town this year. As a result they have asked us to take an additional class for September 2011 in order to meet their statutory duties. This is combined with increases in the number of admissions for three other Primary schools....
INFANT CLASS LEGISLATION
The previous Labour government honoured an election pledge to reduce all Infant classes to 30 children by introducing what is called Infant Class Legislation that banned any class of over 30, except in certain very specific circumstances. Even if those circumstances apply, the school is required within one school year without exception to take 'qualifying measures', which either (a) arrange for two qualified teachers to work full-time with the class; or (b) to split the class into two each with a qualified teacher. Either alternative is a heavy financial burden on any school and very difficult to physically implement in schools with no spare classrooms (the norm). The rules are laid down in the School Admissions Code (SAC) and the School Admission Appeals Code (SAAC), both of which carry the force of law. The rules also apply to Academies.
Parents often puzzle over why they are allowed to appeal and informed of their rights so to do, when they actually stand no chance of success. Sadly, that is the way it is.
The rules for Admissions.
Neither the school nor the Local Authority can offer more places than allowed by the Planned Admission Number, which you will find in the school or Local Authority Prospectus, except in very limited circumstances. SAC states:
2.61 The law does not require a child to start school until the start of the term following their fifth birthday. The date compulsory school age is reached is determined by dates set by the Secretary of State for the autumn, spring and summer terms. These are 31 August, 31 December and 31 March.2.62 Infant classes (i.e. those where the majority of children will reach the age of 5, 6, or 7 during the school year) must not contain more than 30 pupils with a single school teacher. While admission can be refused on normal prejudice grounds once an admission number of lower than 30 (or multiples of 30) has been reached, admission must be refused on “infant class-size prejudice” grounds where the published admission number allows for classes of 30, and the school would have to take ‘qualifying’ measures to keep to the statutory class size limit if more children were admitted, e.g. employ another teacher.
2.63 The class size legislation makes allowance for the entry of an additional child in very limited circumstances where not to admit the child would be prejudicial to his or her interests (‘excepted pupils’). However, every effort must be made to keep over large classes to a minimum. These circumstances are where:
a) children with statements of special educational needs are admitted to the school outside the normal admissions round;
b) children move into the area outside the normal admissions round for whom there is no other available school within reasonable distance (admission authorities must check with local authorities before determining that a child falls into this category);
c) children admitted, after initial allocation of places on the local offer date, because the person responsible for making the original decision recognises that an error was made in implementing the school’s admission arrangements and that a place ought to have been offered;
d) children in care admitted outside the normal admissions round;
e) children admitted where an independent appeal panel upholds an appeal on the grounds that the child would have been offered a place if the admission arrangements had been properly implemented, and/or the admission authority’s decision to refuse a place was not one which a reasonable admission authority would have made in the circumstances of the case;
f) children are registered pupils at special schools and by arrangement with another school which is not a special school, receive part of their education at that other school;
g) children with special education needs who are registered pupils at a school which is not a special school and are normally educated in a special educational needs unit attached to that school, and attend, an infant class in the school (i.e. not in the unit), where this has been deemed as beneficial to the child.
2.64 Except in the case of f) and g), the child will remain an exception for any time they spend in an infant class at the mainstream school or outside the special educational needs unit. In all other circumstances the child will only remain an exception for the remainder of the school year in which they were admitted. Measures must be taken for the following year to ensure that the class falls within the infant class size limit.
The Rules for Appeals
Here SAAC states:
3.19 Where a child has been refused admission to a school on infant class size prejudice grounds, an appeal panel can only offer a place to a child where it is satisfied that either
a) the child would have been offered a place if the admission arrangements had been properly implemented;
b) the child would have been offered a place if the arrangements had not been contrary to mandatory provisions in the School Admissions Code and the SSFA 1998; and/or
c) the decision to refuse admission was not one which a reasonable admission authority would have made in the circumstances of the case.
The third of these cases is usually the one which parents seek to challenge and although it appears reasonably mild, it actually states that the appeal can only be upheld if the admission authority (school or Local Authority) could have gone outside the rules for admission (oversubscription criteria) for the child in question. This is exceedingly rare and relates back to the rules for admission. Many parents seek to challenge the rules themselves, on the grounds that they have a very powerful case for being admitted to that school and not the one they have been allocated and this should have taken priority over the rules, but this is not a valid argument.
The Code wants to leave Appeal Panel members in no doubt as to what 3.19 (b) means and goes on to clarify:
3.25 In order for a panel to determine that an admission authority’s decision to refuse admission was unreasonable, it will need to be satisfied that the decision to refuse to admit the particular child was “perverse in the light of the admission arrangements" i.e. it was “beyond the range of responses open to a reasonable decision maker” or “a decision which is so outrageous in its defiance of logic or of accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question could have arrived at it
Infant Class legislation does not apply only when there is a Planned Admission number of a multiple of 30. Some primary schools combine two different age groups into a class of 30. This can happen when the Planned Admission number is 15, or 20 or a multiple of these. The Code also covers these cases. Other arrangements include smaller reception classes feeding into classes of 30 in Years One and Two. Again the Code covers this case:
3.29 The panel must also consider whether admission of an additional child would cause future infant class size prejudice e.g. a school publishes an admission number of 60, admitting 20 children to three reception classes, which become two classes of 30 children in Years 1 and 2. Admission of a 61st child to reception would lead to one of the Year 1 classes exceeding the infant class size limit unless the school takes remedial measures, such as recruiting an additional teacher. Therefore there would be infant class size prejudice.
Possible reasons for appeal:
(1)you have exceptional circumstances - and if you don't know if your circumstances are exceptional, they almost certainly aren't! Those unlikely to be exceptional include some heart rending cases of difficulty of travel, poor schools allocated, parental commitments, and children heading off in different directions. None of these are likely to be accepted as reasons for AppealPanels to break the rules they are bound to follow.
(2) A second possibility is where Infant Class Legislation does not apply, for example when instead of the normal class size of 30 children, the intake is not a multiple of 10 or 15 (these two numbers allow mixed age classes of 30).
(3) Some church schools where the oversubscriptiuon rules have been loosely drawn up, and contain flaws.
(4) a mistake has been made and a child who is lower down the preference list than you, has been offered a place.
(5) A family has been offered a place on fraudulent evidence. This can be withdrawn, creating a vacant space.
65) a very small number of academies may be prepared to break the rules!
DON'T FORGET TO PUT YOUR NAME ON THE WAITING LIST OF YOUR PREFERRED SCHOOLS.
You can catch me on BBC South East 6.30 this evening, commenting on a case in Thanet, and if they give me air time, more general issues surrounding today's allocations.
I now have details of KCC primary admission data as below
| Pupils | 2011 | 2010 | ||
| No of pupils | % | No of pupils | % | |
| Offered a named school | 15,299 | 94.2% | 14,298 | 95.8% |
| Offered first preference | 13,801 | 84.9% | 13,118 | 88% |
| Offered second preference | 1,080 | 6.7% | 842 | 5.6% |
| Offered third preference | 414 | 2.6% | 329 | 2.2% |
| ooc offered fourth pref | 4 | 0.02% | N/A | N/A |
| Allocated by KCC | 768 | 4.7% | 564 | 3.8% |
| ooc not offered a place | 182 | 1.1% | 67 | 0.4% |
| Total of applications | 16,249 | 14,920 |
You will find the parallel Medway statistics here.
Early thoughts: These are very disappointing results given that KCC itself warned of pressures on Kent Primary places in 2011.......
Catch me on Radio Kent at 7.05 Friday morning talking about primary school admissions.
Kent and Medway Reception Class and Junior School Allocations are being sent out on Thursday March 31st, after 4 p.m. for those who registered online, and by post to arrive the next day for all applications. I am anticipating additional pressures on places, especially in in North West and West Kent. I don't often take on appeals, as Infant Class Legislation means success rates are very low and I Will only get involved if there is a chance. However I am always happy to give advice through my telephone consultation service.
Please feel free to send me details of your dilemma, through the contact me page and I will: (a) tell you if I have no relevant advice; (b) come back with a succinct answer; or (c) suggest I can help.
For all problems, first piece of advice is don't panic.....
Fraudulent Admission applications occur for places in both Primary and secondary schools and in every Local Authority in the country, including both Kent and Medway.
I believe this is a growing problem, and what is seen is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The reasons for this are often through desperation, as parents seek either to secure a place at the best school in the area, or a suitable school when faced with unpalatable alternatives. As such, one can understand their motives, but this is grossly unfair to those children and families who play by the rules.
There are now two sanctions which are applied for applicants who are caught out making a fraudulent application. The first is the simple one of cancelling the application which can cause the perpetrator significant problems in securing an alternative place, or else cancelling a place at the school even if the child has taken up a place there. The second is for the LocalAuthority, or presumably the school Governing Body for a Foundation school or Academy, to initiate a prosecution as happened in two alleged cases in Harrow and Poole. Neither of these were successful for whatever reason, and may have inhibited other Authorities from taking similar action, but the problem remains.
I am regularly approached about this issue and will not advise on how to obtain a place at a school fraudulently. On the other hand, I have successfully supported clients who have found out about a fraudulent application, to see it cancelled to enhance the chances of honest families to secure a place at their chosen school. I am also happy to pass on information on this issue anonymously to the appropriate authorities.
Currently I am aware of only one Admission Authority, the Governing Body of Tunbridge Wells Girls Grammar School, which routinely carries out checks on applicants, an initiative I applaud for a massively popular school in an area where it is evident that some families do take out short term leases to attempt to secure school places. However, I anticipate that the practice of attempting to obtain school places by fraudulent means will grow.
The Schools Adjudicator carried out an enquiry into the practice of Fraudulent Admission to schools in 2009. He found some small and medium sized Local Authorities considered they had more than 100 identified fraudulent applications, whilst others, including large LAs, had none. In the same period KCC had 13 reported cases, of which most were dismissed.I consider the weakness of Kent's procedure lies in its delegation of discovering fraud to individual schools, most of which do not have the resources to investigate such issues.
The most common method identified is the use of addresses of relatives, the next being the taking up of short term leases or rental agreements on houses with no intention of living there.